The Latest Word On Trends And Developments In Aerospace And Defense
Hill Happenings. Congress is back from a two-week recess this week and defense budget hearings will be in full swing. Highlights include a SASC Airland subcommittee session tomorrow on Air Force and Navy tactical aircraft, Seapower subcommittee hearing Wednesday on Navy shipbuilding, and Airland meeting Thursday on Army modernization. Nuclear weapons and missile defenses will be hot topics, following last week’s release of the Nuclear Posture Review and signing, by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, of the new Strategic Arms Reduction (START) treaty; related hearings will be held by the HASC Wednesday (on nuclear weapons policy and force structure), SASC Strategic Forces subpanel Wednesday (on strategic forces programs of the National Nuclear Security Administration), and HASC Strategic Forces subcommittee Thursday (on the ballistic missile defense review and FY ’11 budget for missile-defense programs).
…Quadrennial Qualms. The HASC will also hear on Thursday from an independent panel that assessed the Pentagon’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. The co-chairs of the United States Institute for Peace’s Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel will testify; they are former Defense Secretary William Perry and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Other members of the panel include Rudy deLeon, former deputy defense secretary; retired Navy Adm. David Jeremiah, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, former supreme allied commander, Europe; retired Air Force Gen. Larry Welch, former service chief of staff; John Lehman, former Navy secretary; and former Missouri Republican senator Jim Talent.
Special Money. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stresses the need for special-operations funding during an April 7 speech at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He says one of his greatest struggles since he came to the Pentagon in 2006 has been getting “the irregular (warfare) guys to the table” when it comes to allocating the budget, according to American Forces Press Service. “It wasn’t how big was their place going to be, it was how do we get them to the table at all?” he says. He adds “this is all about how we can get all of the players to the table so that we have the full range of capabilities to deal with the threats and the challenges that the country is going to face over the next several decades.” Most of U.S. Special Operations Command’s budget when Gates took office was in supplemental funding, but since then it has been migrated to the base defense budget.
Nuclear Capable. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be able to carry Air Force nuclear weapons, Defense Department officials say. “The Air Force will retain a dual-capable fighter as it replaces F-16s with F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,” the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, says at a Pentagon briefing. During the rollout of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the administration’s overarching nuclear strategy, Cartwright says the country will “retain the capability to forward-deploy U.S. nuclear weapons on tactical fighter bombers,” including the F-35, as well as bombers such as the B-2 and B-52.
F-35 Avionics. The first mission systems-equipped F-35 flew for the first time last week, Lockheed Martin says. During the flight out of the company’s Fort Worth, Texas, plant, the test pilot verified engine response at varying throttle settings, performed a series of flight-quality maneuvers and checked the operation of the aircraft’s mission systems. The F-35’s next-generation sensor suite collects vast amounts of data and fuses it into a single display. The F-35’s avionics, or mission systems, also process and apply data from a wide array of off-board sensors based on the land, in the air or at sea, enabling the jet to perform command-and-control functions while providing situational awareness to air and surface forces. F-35 avionics already have undergone more than 100,000 hours of laboratory testing, according to Lockheed Martin, including sensor-fusion testing in the program’s Cooperative Avionics Test Bed.
Chief of Lab. Richard Linderman became the new chief scientist, Information Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, N.Y., late last month, the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, says. Linderman replaces John Bay. The Information Directorate leads the discovery, development and integration of affordable information technologies for air, space and cyberspace forces. It consists of more than 800 military and civilian scientists, engineers, and administrative and support personnel pursuing a wide variety of research and development projects, with an annual budget of more than $760 million. As Chief Scientist, Linderman will provide principal technical oversight of a broad spectrum of information technologies including fusion and exploitation; command and control; advanced architectures; information management; communications and networking; defensive information warfare; and intelligent information systems technologies.
Orion Test. Alliant Techsystems says that it has successfully completed the second of two ground tests of a full-scale attitude control motor (ACM) for the launch abort system (LAS) of NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle. The second test was conducted on March 17, and evaluated environment extremes and ignition system robustness in addition to confirming the motor performance. The test was conducted at ATK’s facility in Elkton, Md., where the first successful test was conducted on Dec. 15, 2009. Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor to NASA for Orion, leads the project team developing the space flight vehicle. This test of the control motor validates the readiness for NASA’s upcoming pad abort 1 (PA-1) flight test that will be conducted at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., according to a statement from ATK.
Got COTS. Earlier this year, GoAhead Software acquired a new set of commercial-off-the-shelf capabilities called embeddedMIND–which is management for network devices, Bill Yaman, vice president sales and marketing, says. “We acquired them as a business division from a company called S3 Group out of Ireland.” GoAhead will maintain embeddedMIND’s development facility and leverage the team’s skills and experience in configuration management to deliver an innovative set of broader solutions, S3 Group says.
…More Acquisitions. GoAhead also acquired the Avantellis product line from St. Louis, Mo.-based Emerson Network Power. GoAhead’s market leadership uniquely positions them to drive the next steps in the rapid development of these OpenSAF-based products, Yaman says. Emerson Network power will be signing up as a global reseller for GoAhead, he adds. “They’ve got a fairly strong sales organization that will now be selling GoAhead products as opposed to their own proprietary product.”
Green Light. The Navy declares BAE Systems’ Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKS) ready to enter production. The Milestone C decision signifies that the APKS development program has met its objectives and the system is ready to enter low-rate initial production, BAE says. APKS, developed by BAE in partnership with the U.S. government, provides aviators with a highly precise weapon that is effective against soft and lightly armored targets while minimizing collateral damage–important in urban areas and other situations in which non-combatants or friendly forces are near hostile targets. The Marine Corps will initially deploy APKS from AH-1W Cobra helicopters, the company adds. Before being declared production-ready, APKS underwent a rigorous series of flight, component, and all-up-round qualification tests. The flight tests, which culminated in a perfect 8-for-8 score in a series designed and conducted by Marine test pilots, demonstrated that the system’s accuracy exceeds government requirements, BAE says.
Hawaii Hits The Docks. The USS Hawaii became the first U.S. Pacific fleet Virginia-class submarine to go into dry dock at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, NAVSEA says. The ship went into dry dock last month and will undergo routine inspection and maintenance in the shipyard until early May. Because Virginia-class submarines pose unique challenges that make docking the modern vessels more complicated than Los Angeles-class ships, the shipyard put together a special project team strictly dedicated to Hawaii‘s dry docking. Dry docking Hawaii also provided a model for future repair work in the shipyard on Virginia– class submarines, the Navy adds.
Work Begins On New Egyptian FMC. VT Halter Marine shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., lays the keel April 7 for the first Egyptian navy Fast Missile Craft (FMC), NAVSEA says. The Egyptian FMC program is being managed as a foreign military sale by the Auxiliary Ships, Small Boats and Craft Program Office (PMS 325) in the U.S. Navy’s PEO Ships. VT Halter started fabrication of the first craft on Nov. 30 in a newly constructed fabrication facility at their Pascagoula shipyard. The keel laying for the first craft represents the official unveiling of the new facility, which will allow the shipyard to perform 75-80 percent of production work indoors. Production of the first craft is progressing on schedule, and the ship is expected to join the Egyptian fleet in 2012. Egypt signed an FMS case for the purchase of three FMCs in September 2004. After extensive functional design and long-lead item procurement and design efforts, the construction contract was placed with VT Halter Marine in September 2008. A fourth vessel was requested by the Egyptian navy and was put under contract in March 2010, NAVSEA adds.
…Primary Mission. FMC will conduct independent and joint operations, primarily against armed surface adversaries, NAVSEA says. The Egyptian navy has a requirement for a ship with the capabilities of an FMC to combat these threats and to patrol and defend its coastal waterways of the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and, in particular, the Suez Canal. Each 63-meter craft will carry a 76mm Super Rapid Gun, Harpoon Block II missiles, MK49 Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM), and the Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) Block 1B. These high- speed, agile ships will reach speeds of greater than 34 knots, provide berthing for a crew of up to 40 sailors, and will be able to operate up to eight days independently at sea, NAVSEA adds.
Rugged Laptop. General Dynamics is making available a new rugged Tadpoler TOPAZ notebook computer for military power-users, first responders and federal agents, the company reports. Built from commercial-off-the-shelf technology, the lightweight, compact-sized Tadpole TOPAZ also supports network connectivity at multiple security levels and interoperability with computers and radios currently fielded by the U.S. military. Tadpole TOPAZ has passed rigorous military-standard tests including exposure to high and low temperatures, shock and vibration extremes and water resistance. For users, three segregated Ethernet ports enable Tadpole TOPAZ operators to gain access to multiple networks operating at different levels of information security, the company adds.
April Madness. The annual National Security Innovation Competition for college students will be held in Colorado Springs, Colo., May 7th, at MITRE Corp., and organized by the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance. This university competition is designed to stimulate interest by college students in national security-related innovations and expose novel technologies to a broad audience including industry, academic, and government organizations involved in aerospace, defense, security, and first responder activities. The competition is open to school-sponsored, full-time undergraduate or graduate students at any U.S. or Canadian college. The finalists represent some of the most prestigious schools in the United States and Canada including Michigan Technological University, Virginia Tech, University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Connecticut, University of Ottawa, and the University of Alabama.
MRAP Upgrades. Marine Corps Systems Command awards General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada a $28.6 million delivery order modification for proposed vehicle engineering upgrades and associated non-recurring engineering costs in support of RG-31 Mk5E vehicles under the MRAP program. These upgrades will support vehicles that are being built under a delivery order awarded to General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada on Feb. 17, for 250 RG-31 Mk5E vehicles for the MRAP program. The contract was signed through the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a Crown Agency of the Canadian Government.
International Exercise. More than 450 personnel from the Australian Defence Force are participating in Exercise Croix Du Sud 2010, a French-led six nation multinational humanitarian assistance disaster relief exercise in Noumea running April 8-23. The ADF will be providing the Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Manoora and a contingent of Australian Army personnel from the Townsville-based 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. Additionally, the ADF will provide personnel to augment the Combined Joint Task Force Head Quarters in Noumea. Personnel from France, New Zealand, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea will be taking part in the humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and evacuation exercise to improve interoperability.
Refurbish Work. Oshkosh Defense announces it has received four awards valued at more than $19 million from the TACOM Life Cycle Management Command for additional work to be included under its Theater-Provided Equipment Refurbishment (TPER) program with the U.S. military. This work includes the delivery of nearly 200 refurbished heavy and line-haul vehicles, and will extend the Oshkosh Defense TPER work at its Kuwait facility to January 2011. Oshkosh will deliver more than 140 refurbished Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles and more than 50 refurbished line-haul vehicles. Oshkosh has the in-theater capabilities, including a multifaceted supply-chain management approach, to repair and refurbish non- Oshkosh products such as the trailers and line-haul vehicles.
Hellfire Success. Lockheed Martin’s multi-purpose AGM 14R Hellfire II missile scores another success in its second proof-of-principle (POP) flight test, the first armed with a live warhead. The R model, or “Romeo” missile, features a multi-purpose warhead that enables a single Hellfire missile to cover all of the target sets of the currently fielded laser-guided variants. The POP 2 flight test, conducted at Eglin AFB, Fla., featured a lock-on-after-launch engagement of a stationary target board at 1.6 miles. The team used a ground-based laser designator to illuminate the target. The multi-purpose warhead was set with a delayed fuze that allows the missile to penetrate the target before detonating. The missile was launched with a low trajectory suitable for a military operation in urban terrain scenario and struck the target board precisely designated by the laser aimpoint. The precursor warhead detonated on impact, while the primary warhead successfully detonated a short distance beyond the target.